


Going Places

by captainoflifeandlemons



Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast), Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (and someone else if you decode the message), Codes & Ciphers, Crossover, Gen, Goddard Futuristics, Interviews, Mention of Character Death, Sally totally rides her bike everywhere okay I don't care how old she is, brief references to Chet Whickman and Pryce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 15:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7940440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainoflifeandlemons/pseuds/captainoflifeandlemons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been years since ODAR came to a chaotic and deadly end, and the world has moved on. The world never knew ODAR was there to begin with. All that remains of the once all-powerful agency is a technologically advanced twentieth century and a handful of old scientists. Sally Grissom is no longer struggling with the thought of living in the past, just living with it. </p><p>That's when she gets approached for a job by a company called Goddard Futuristics.</p><p>Plus, dentistry ads, gnawing curiousity, Formal "Probably A Robot" Tie, and the literal curvature of space and time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Places

When her bicycle pulled up outside the building, it was 1976. When she walked through the front door, it was 1976. When she spoke to the receptionist and was directed to a waiting area down a long hall, it was 1976. 

But when Sally Grissom passed a lab and looked in through the glass on the door, it was 20[--REDACTED--].

After nearly three decades in the past, she couldn't think of it as the past any more. It was the present, the only real present. The other present—the one she came from—was a future that would never exist. But this room seemed to be trying its hardest to convince her otherwise. At a glance she could see tech that would have fit in back at her old lab, before the Eldridge and the Timepiece and Philadelphia. Before her life was thrown a curveball that literally curved space and time.

No—scratch that. Her face pressed up against the glass. This stuff was even more advanced than her old lab. And her old lab had accidentally built a time machine. 

Her first thought was ODAR. Well, her first thought was to check if the door was unlocked so she could get a closer look, but her second thought was definitely ODAR. It made sense. The tantalizingly cryptic too-good-to-be-true job offer was hardly a new trick for them, and who else even knew her name? All of her work, her real work, was classified or wouldn't be published for another thirty to forty years. In the old order of things, anyways. Even female physicists who were trying to find work struggled, let alone one who'd been in retirement for years now. It had to be ODAR.

It had to, but it couldn't be. It wasn't. ODAR was gone, dead and buried. Or dead and burned—buried implied that if you looked hard enough you could find then. There was nothing left of ODAR to find. Nothing but Sally and a few others who didn't want to be found.

Foosteps sounded behind her and she snapped guiltily back into pace, reaching the waiting area after another few minutes of maze-like twists and gnawing curiosity. There was a young man sitting upright in one of the chairs who looked liked he'd walked out of a piece of corporate propaganda, one part combed hair and three parts formal tie. 

"Hi," she said, pulling her I'm-a-people-person-I-swear interview voice from the abyssal recesses of her mind's storage unit. "I'm Dr. Sally Grissom. I'm supposed to be seeing someone about a jo—wow, you move quickly, don't you?" In the span of a single blink, Formal Tie had gone from his seat across the room to shaking her hand.

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am—sorry, _Doctor_." He smiled and Sally revised her first impression. He clearly came from a dentistry ad, and he hadn't walked out, he'd been forcibly removed for having _too_ bright of a grin. "Don't worry, you're in the right place. We must be here for the same job."

She sat down. The chairs were made of some material that made it impossible to do anything other than lounge in them, although Formal Tie's valiant attempt at good posture seemed almost successful. "I'd better warn you, then. I'm pretty tough competition."

The laugh sounded the way the smile looked. No way was that kid a real person. Maybe this company was high-tech enough to have developed a working AI unit and stuck it in some kind of hyper-realistic android. Honestly, she wouldn't even be surprised—ODAR had screwed with scientific development so drastically that the moon landing happened decades before she remembered it. They paved the way for this sort of R&D-based corporation in silica and graphene. 

Formal Tie—Formal "Probably A Robot" Tie—was talking again. "I believe it. Let me guess—biologist?"

"Physicist," she corrected with a shake of her head. "Although I've dabbled in a bit of everything. What about you?"

"Oh, I'm not a scientist. I work for the company. They're mostly bringing in outside specialists for this project, but apparently they also want someone representing the business. My superiors recommended me and, well, here I am." He ducked his head modestly in that special style of the quietly but keenly ambitious. In a way, he reminded her of Chet Whickman when they'd first met. The sort of person others described as "going places." Of course, in the end the only place Chet had gone was six feet under. Something told her this kid was aiming a bit higher. 

Sally tapped her fingers thoughtfully on the side of her seat, though it was too soft to indulge her with the intended drumming noise. "Then maybe you can tell me, company man. What is this job I'm interviewing for? Your people were awfully vague when they contacted me. All twelve times."

His shrug looked sincere. "Wish I had something _to_ tell you, but I'm as in the dark as you are. All I know is the name of the project—Tiamat—and that if we get the position, we'll be working on something new. Something unlike anything either of us has ever seen."

"Hah, I've been _there_ before," Sally countered, with a laugh that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Tiamat, huh?"

Before she had a chance to consider the implications of the allusion or press Formal "Probably A Robot" Tie for more information, the door across from the waiting area swung open. 

"—again, Major Pryce. We'll be in contact." 

A man held the door open as a dark-haired woman nodded her thanks and headed down the hallway. As she turned the corner, he looked down at his clipboard.

"Dr. Grissom, we're ready for you."

Sally struggled her way off the far-too-comfortable chair and gathered her wits and handbag about her. The man had already stepped through the door. She turned back to her new acquaintance, who was once again standing for a handshake before her arm was even extended. 

One part combed hair, three parts formal tie, all charm. "Welcome to Goddard Futuristics, Doctor."

This time, her smile was genuine. "I haven't gotten the job yet."

"You will. I can tell." His hand dropped neatly to his side.

"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence," she said. "And—what have I been thinking? Sorry, clearly I've spent too much time gardening lately and not enough in the company of other people. I never got your name."

"William Carter."

Strike that; her mental math wasn't as good as it used to be. One part combed-hair, _two_ parts formal tie, and one part something she couldn't quite place. All charm.  "Best of luck to you, William Carter."

His voice and his smile followed her through into the office. "And to you, Dr. Sally Grissom. The same to you."

 

* * *

 

Blue. Blue. 

12 22 20 19 | 26 11 | 15 25 20 25 7 2 10 | 16 18 10 8 3 9 21 25 19 | 4 1 3 4 13 | 20 6 | 16 7 9 | 18 5 11 | 12 22 20 19 | 21 7 | 2 26 20 | 11 19 25 16 | 20 25 23 | 24 26 2 | 7 4 19 12 19 22 | 22 3 | 25 15 11 | 12 15 22 5 | 11 26 19 | 21 15 19

The weather in Canaveral today is: SOLAR

**Author's Note:**

> Because the world needs more of both of these podcasts.
> 
> For some reason I've latched onto the idea that Cutter—er, William Carter—was on the crew of the Tiamat. I wanted to write an aP/w359 crossover and once I realized that Sally would (hopefully!) still be alive during the Tiamat mission, well, my course was clear. The more I thought about it, the better the pieces fit. Given enough time (hah) and resources, ODAR's interference could easily lead to the state of technogical advancement seen in the universe of Wolf 359. And you /know/ that Goddard would somehow find out about Sally and drag her out of retirement. The end result being a friendly chat between Formal Tie and everyone's favorite time-traveling, wise-cracking, gardening scientist.
> 
> I did absolutely no research for this fic, so I'm sure there are several historically inaccurate details. Chalk it up to people screwing with time.
> 
> And one final note: now we know why the Hephaestus wasn't stocked with enough toothpaste. Cutter used it all.


End file.
